Paul Miller Falls Victim To The AOL Way

Oh come on don’t deny it you read Engadget every day like most other tech enthusiasts and everyone here at thedroidguy. We make no bones about it we are more team TC than team Engadget however, I do have a lot of respect for everything Engadget does and has done for the tech community.

Although Engadget was purchased and brought under the Tim Armstrong, AOL umbrella before Tech Crunch, and the Huffington Post and all the other content providers that have moved from their own homes to AOL Towns, the move has taken it’s toll on a first class journalist.

Please don’t misunderstand my post I am not from the school that thinks Engadget, Tech Crunch, or any of the AOL blogs have sold out. There are a lot of big named blogs owned by bigger named corporations and in my opinion its an honor more of a sellout when some company has enough faith in your product to pour millions into it. If faced with a similar offer me and my team would definitely consider it. We’ve turned down a few offers to fold TDG into another site and then me manage the twitter presence.

But Paul Miller…

From their often sarcastic and somtimes flippant style, especially in live blogging, some might think that the Engadget posse is maybe a little arrogant.. they’re not…

I’ve run into Paul at a few events, shared tables in press rooms with him and gone to some after parties where he’s been in attendance. Not enough to call friends, maybe colleagues but needless to say you can tell by reading he is passionate about tech, writing, freedom of the press and high level pixel density displays.

Miller penned his last post on Engadget on the 18th and this farewell on his personal site shortly after. On his personal blog he writes

AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

Miller has always been an open supporter of good journalism and brings it. His blog says he doesn’t know where he’ll end up but wants to stay in the tech community and I’m sure he will.

It was big news that the Huffington Post was purchased by AOL. No one seems to know exactly what Tim Armstrong’s big plan is for AOL he is building a strong content empire of some of the best individual thinkers in the space however with all these hot content properties 80% of AOL’s revenue still comes from subscribers. He says that sites like Engadget and Tech Crunch still have their own editorial control, but it seems that’s not the case. Armstrong comes from a background in Google’s main business search. Search = SEO.

We’re not sure what the future has in store for Future Paul but when another popular, enthusiastic tech journalist and all around good guy Noah Kravitz ventured out to he found his perfect opportunity he did, as will Miller.

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